Blessings and Bread

When the doorbell rang on Friday morning, I immediately thought it was going to be a package! We don't get many visitors, especially drop-in visitors during the day, but we have gotten several packages since we've been married, and the doorbell rings every time! (Hopefully I won't go Pavlovian and start drooling when it happens!)


It was indeed a very large package. It was too large to be the latest book I requested from paperbackswap.com (Lasting Love by Allistair Beg). And I didn't think that John had ordered anything recently.

Inside was this lovely thing:

 

It's a rice cooker from my dear cousins and aunt and uncle in Albania, as confirmed by a facebook message which shortly followed.  I had to add it to the list of thank you notes still to write, and as I did, I was reminded of how spoiled/blessed we are. 

 

I don't really like using the word "spoiled," because literally it means, well, ruined!  The word "blessed" is better because every good thing is a gift from the hand of our merciful God, but it almost doesn't cover it, because often blessings aren't exciting, new, or material.  Sometimes they're disguised in trials.  Surely, I'm not going to say that John and I are more blessed than my parents were as newlyweds, even though they only had $17 a week to spend on groceries and never dreamed of owning a kitchenaid or a rice cooker or going on a honeymoon in Italy.  In comparison, we seem spoiled.  And why?  Why is it that life is so easy for us right now?  Surely, surely more difficult times will come.  Hopefully, in the face of future trials, our joy together, with each other, will never once waver.  But I don't want to become complacent, expecting God to continue to bless me with worldly things when He has already blessed me so abundantly with His Son, and now with John. 

 

"Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion,

That I not be full and deny You and say, "Who is the LORD ?" Or that I not be in want and steal, And profane the name of my God."  Proverbs 30:8-9
 
On another note, I made bread yesterday!  It's Ezekiel bread, from a recipe in Taste of Home.  I thought it was sooo beautiful . . . .
 

But then, when I cut one load open to freeze half of it, I discovered this: 

Does anyone know what would make bread do this?  

Besides that, it's quite delicious, and according to my calculations, approximately $1.83 a loaf, until I can start finding wheat germ, honey, etc. at better prices.  And John likes it too, yay!